Boy Names That Start With P
Boys' names beginning with P, ranked by how many babies actually got them — not by editorial preference — plus which ones are climbing and how the letter itself has moved.
- Share of boys, 2025
- 1.2%
- vs 1.7% in 2000
- Names in use
- 200
- 719 recorded since 1880
- Letter peaked
- 1964
- at 3.5% of names
- Rank among 26 letters
- #20
- by 2025 share
How P has fared since 1880
Share of all listed U.S. births given a name starting with P, year by year. Plotted as a share rather than a count — raw counts track how many babies were born, so every letter would appear to peak in 1957.
| Save name | Name & meaning | History 1926–2025, yearly counts; individually scaled | Babies 2025 · rank | 5-year rank movement | Peak year |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,316#262 | Down 10 rank positions in five years | 1957 | |||
| 1,495#235 | Down 30 rank positions in five years | 1964 | |||
| 1,954#187 | Up 28 rank positions in five years | 1957 | |||
| 568#528 | Down 75 rank positions in five years | 1953 | |||
| 425#651 | Down 132 rank positions in five years | 1960 | |||
| 3,477#102 | Down 7 rank positions in five years | 2014 | |||
| 1,131#299 | Down 71 rank positions in five years | 2007 | |||
| 684#455 | Down 44 rank positions in five years | 2000 | |||
| 135#1,373 | Down 112 rank positions in five years | 1959 | |||
| 398#684 | Down 251 rank positions in five years | 2007 | |||
| 743#430 | Down 45 rank positions in five years | 2006 | |||
| 58#2,382 | Up 153 rank positions in five years | 1959 | |||
| 154#1,279 | Up 782 rank positions in five years | 1921 | |||
| 988#338 | Down 76 rank positions in five years | 2016 | |||
| 109#1,569 | Down 447 rank positions in five years | 2000 | |||
| 1,027#329 | Down 93 rank positions in five years | 2020 | |||
| 703#447 | Down 132 rank positions in five years | 2019 | |||
| 531#560 | Down 136 rank positions in five years | 2015 | |||
| 598#505 | Down 1 rank positions in five years | 2015 | |||
| 159#1,253 | Down 138 rank positions in five years | 1988 | |||
| 422#653 | Down 241 rank positions in five years | 2017 | |||
| 230#995 | Up 193 rank positions in five years | 2023 | |||
| 60#2,326 | Down 237 rank positions in five years | 1991 | |||
| 110#1,559 | Up 59 rank positions in five years | 2006 | |||
| 88#1,819 | Down 252 rank positions in five years | 2009 | |||
| 59#2,346 | Down 63 rank positions in five years | 2009 | |||
| 56#2,440 | Down 553 rank positions in five years | 2004 | |||
| 59#2,347 | Up 189 rank positions in five years | 2006 | |||
| 76#2,003 | Up 530 rank positions in five years | 2007 | |||
| 123#1,456 | Down 319 rank positions in five years | 2020 | |||
| 105#1,616 | Down 182 rank positions in five years | 2016 | |||
| 40#3,073 | Up 633 rank positions in five years | 1974 | |||
| 51#2,593 | Up 876 rank positions in five years | 1999 | |||
| 73#2,051 | Down 854 rank positions in five years | 2019 | |||
| 42#2,971 | Up 575 rank positions in five years | 2017 | |||
| 36#3,290 | Down 904 rank positions in five years | 2015 | |||
| 37#3,224 | Up 666 rank positions in five years | 2008 | |||
| 77#1,987 | Up 1,028 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 113#1,536 | Up 1,183 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 36#3,291 | Down 757 rank positions in five years | 2015 | |||
| 168#1,210 | Up 313 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 48#2,707 | Down 733 rank positions in five years | 2020 | |||
| 48#2,706 | Down 733 rank positions in five years | 2014 | |||
| 53#2,528 | Up 264 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 72#2,074 | Up 152 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 36#3,289 | Down 38 rank positions in five years | 2024 | |||
| 194#1,110 | Up 1,907 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 44#2,870 | Down 556 rank positions in five years | 2021 | |||
| 51#2,594 | Up 730 rank positions in five years | 2025 | |||
| 56#2,439 | Up 2,223 rank positions in five years | 2025 |
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P names climbing fastest
Biggest P names of all time
By total applications since 1880 — a different list from the one above, because it counts every generation, not just this one.
Every other letter
Sources & methodology
Rankings and counts come from official birth card-application data, 1880–2025. Counts are card applications rather than births, and any name given to fewer than 5 babies of one sex in a year is not published — so “—” means genuinely uncommon, never invalid. The “climbing fastest” row ranks by five-year rank movement as a ratio, and a name must be inside the top 1,000 with at least 200 applications in 2025 to qualify — a looser gate than the site-wide trending list uses, because inside a single letter the stricter one leaves some letters empty. Letter shares are measured over listed names only, and the 25-year comparison is a generation rather than five years because letter fashion moves far more slowly than any one name.